Truck With 112 Cattle Flips On Trans Mountain

Trans Mountain Road was closed for more than six hours overnight after a semi-truck with more than a hundred cattle flipped over.

Police officers and sheriff’s deputies quickly set up road blocks after the wreck at both the east and west ends of Trans Mountain Road heading into the mountain pass.

Fire crews and local ranchers also lent a hand to try and free the cattle stuck inside the smashed trailer.

Some cattle escaped and scattered across the roadway and even into the canyons alongside Trans Mountain Road which is the reason traffic was completely shut down till just before seven this morning. About half of the 112 cattle in the trailer at the time of the accident have been recovered and taken to a nearby ranch in Canutillo.

Twelve of them died due to injuries from the crash but almost 40 were still missing in the canyons of the Franklin Mountains.

Local rancher Hank Web said the cattle were coming from Mexico and left quite a mess after the trailer flipped on its side.

“The cattle were going from the point of entry at santa teresa to a feed lot up in the panhandle and the rig turned over and it was a mess we had to cut one calf’s leg off to get him out he was pinned underneath the metal,” Web said.

The ranchers from Canutillo worked throughout the morning to try and locate the remaining missing cattle.